Welcome Globalive to the Canadian cell phone market

 i sincerely hope the announcement today that the federal government has overturned the CRTC's dubious decision to block global live launch in canada will result in more choices and more real competition in canada.

we all know that we pay the highest rates for cell phone services in the world, and as a result have the lowest adoption rates. the current big 3 carriers have been all to happy to leave prices sky high, and complicitly conspire against the consumers in canada, and so far they've had the CRTC on their side.

what i love about todays annoucement is 2 things, firstly the prospect of more competition, but almost more enjoyable was the fact the the CRTC were rendered obsolete with the government simply overruling the decision and the anger coming out of Telus, Bell and Rogers on the back of the decision... check this out from one of Telus's corporate VP's of Bullshitting the public:

"If Wind is Canadian, then so was King Tut," said Michael Hennessy, head of regulatory affairs for Telus, on his Twitter page. "When you have no effective opposition party, you can make the rules you want."

Hahahahah, i love it when they get pounded!!! Here's a big fuck you to Telus, Bell and Rogers for fucking Canadians in the ass with some of the most expensive cellular services in the world.

Corporal Benjamin Monty Robinson - 2 dead civilians and still no arrest....

Let me introduce you to the RCMP's finest, Corporal Monty Benjamin. This is the piece of shit, and i use the term accurately, who lead the 4 RCMP officers into the murderous rampage that ended in the death of Robert Dziekanski, the polish immigrant who was tasered to death October 14th, 2007 at the Vancouver Airport.

Turns out Corporal Monty Benjamin isn't just happy killing one innocent civilian, he's gone out and bettered it. This time he struck and killed a young motorcyclist while driving drunk. He then fled the scene of the accident, and claimed that he was drinking after the accident. (Even though the police caught him minutes later). I also understand the low life had his own kids in the car at the time of the accident.

Fast forward to today, and in disgust and disbelief I watch along with the community as this bottom feeder is charged only with obstruction of justice. (Full report on CTV) This is what policing has become - 2 innocent civilians dead at this guys hands, and not a hint of justice served. The media really hasn't even been clear making a deal out of the fact that this is the same guy that was a part of the taser death 4, infact this is the senior officer.

We all knew that the police and justice system do little to nothing to protect us in Vancouver, now we know they are in some cases actually the people we should fear most...

Great report from the National Post

can i borrow a bulldozer?

i think they should bulldoze the entire area from hastings st and richards st to hastings and boundary rd in burnaby. it's a disgusting stretch of hell, starting with the downtown eastside which incase you never get there gives you a feel for what life is like outside the greenzone in baghdad, although at least in baghdad your car would be safer.

once you clear the warzone, junkies and hookers you hit a stretch of dubious businesses that when you pass them you can't imagine anyone possibly going in and transacting even if they actually wanted any of the crap being sold, clear that, and you basically hit loonie and toonie stores all the way to burnaby.

they should also send the parent management from dairy queen, arbys and burger king out there to see what those franchise operations might have looked like 25 or 30 years ago. the condition that those fast food places are in are just disgusting...and they are probably the only businesses who generate legitimate revenue in the area...

Show me a good sandwich joint in this city...please for the love of god

with the exception of ethnic food, this cities eateries are nothing short of atrocious. I've made many gripes on this blog about the quality of food in vancouver, and this time i want to get more specific. While you can go out at any given time and find fantastic japanese, chinese, malay, thai, indian even iranian food. it's near impossible to go anywhere and get a great sandwich.

my personal favorite is a chicken salad sandwich, new york style. nice thick crispy fresh bread, with a generous portion of chicken or any meat for that matter. the sandwiches here suck! period. fresh bread is the first problem, most sandwich joints use sliced bread, and then basic sandwich preparation skills are the second. there's an art to a good sandwich, knowing the right proportions, knowing how much content you can push into it, knowing the right condiments. needless to say very disappointed, if anyone has good suggestions please let me know.

NAFTA when it benefits us....

can't help but laugh at the chorus of protesters complaining about the appointment of a US firm to provide Olympic pavilion construction contracting. These are the same monkeys who complain about every single penny spent on the games, and the lack of fiscal prudence around the budgeting. yet when a firm wins fairly through a public bid process they are up in arms because a local more expensive contractor wasn't hired.

you can't have it both ways vancouver...

the worlds worst nightclubs

talk about lame. it's a good thing i am past the age of partying, otherwise i truly believe I would go insane living in this city. the night spots in vancouver rate somewhere between lame and a 3 year coma. worse still the lines that form in front of these places are longer than the line in real cities like chicago and new york. once you get in its the same tired boring crap.

the bars also suck - bigtime. none of them have a pulse, all of them have TV's usually with hockey games. In most cities you can find a great irish bar, not here. Doolins is the closest, and the irish decor in there looks like it was found in a mail order catalog.

another thing that shits me...in the US when you tip a bar tender you get service. every now and then they buy you a drink, or give you a double, or even a triple, they free pour and don't measure the shots down to the inch. in vancouver, you still have to tip, but your drinks are metered out with aerospace accuracy, and the only way you are getting a complementary drink is if some waitress spills it on you, and even then you have to ask.

playgrounds that suck...

as a parent of young children I have many occasion to be in a park with my kids (less so now as we enter the monsoon season). It astounds me how poorly equipped Vancouver parks are with leisure equipment and playgrounds. Some parks have invested in 3 or 4 pieces of what should be much larger jungle gym systems. I caught a glance of such an example a couple of weeks back while i was in seattle, and took the kids to a park in bellevue while my wife shopped.

this park had the same brand of jungle gym that many of our parks have, but with many many more options, activities and amusements. i mean even my 4 year old was shocked.

also, while i am bitching about parks, why the fuck doesn't stanley park have a huge public icerink - central park style??? i mean seriously we live in canada, we have a huge amazing park right in the center of our city what better way to bring people into the park to enjoy it in winter than to have an ice rink there???

More isn't always More

ever been to antons? it's one of vancouver's most famous restaurants, and when i got here everyone told me - you have to go to antons. well 5 years later I finally get the chance, and let me just say what a joke. the whole deal with the place, is that they serve you what is essentially a double portion, so you get to take home another entire meal.

the catch is the pasta is sloppy crap. absolutely tasteless crap. but then what did you expect in this good food free zone we call vancouver.

Where are our tax $$$ going???

Quebec, that's where. Do you know what equalization payments are - if not check this out...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Transfer_Payments

"70% of the 10 million Canadians residing in "have not" provinces are in Quebec"

That means that roughly $8.5B in federal tax revenue will be redistributed to quebec in order that their residents can continue to do and contribute very little, yet cost us all very big.

Kindle works in Canada, but kind of not....fully??

I must admit, the Kindle is one device i don't particularly care for. i don't believe it's necessary to invest in yet another screen to read and believe paying $260 for a black and white screen and 2GB memory card is downright stupid.

...however. what does piss me off is that once again Canadians got the shaft in terms of device availability and service continuity. is this why we protect canadian wireless carriers from US competition? so canadians can pay higher bills for less service for access to products behind the REST of the world?

thanks to the crtc and inept government policy failure for yet another colossal fucking over of us the canadian tax payers and consumers.

Give me light....please

i live in what could only be considered the geographical center of vancouver, and despite this, many of the streets i walk are dimly to poorly lit. what is it with the the lighting in this city? are we using 20W bulbs to conserve power?

one particular demographic happy with the "romantic" ambiance in this city are the criminals. it provides them with the perfect cover to steal ipods from the cars of unsuspecting motorists.

would it kill us to turn up the power a little and provide a safer environment for everyone, and a tougher one for the junkies to steal our ipods?

Need I say more...

It is not necessary to dial 1.........

i realize this isn't a Vancouver specific gripe, and I don't even know if it's a Canada specific gripe, but i think we can all identify with this pain.

dont you hate it when you call a number and insert the 1 infront (even if it's local) and you get that annoying message instructing you to hangup and dial again. most annoying is the fact that at home, my Caller ID often comes through with a 1 in front of the local number who called me, so when i select the option to redial, it gives me the annoying message that i need to redial again without the 1.

the 1 is what supposedly takes you out of your own local area code, the complication in Vancouver is that the idiots that be have setup the 604 area code in such a way that some 604 numbers are local and some aren't...so in some cases you do need the 1 ahead of the 604 and in others you dont. it doesn't seem to be a problem when calling from a cell phone, so why is a problem from a landline????

"Diverse Communitites"

I just love the way action groups and social welfare advocates in Vancouver refer to areas that have large populations of homeless, drug addicts and vagrants as "culturally diverse". It's become a mantra to describe the residents in the downtown east side for example. In these filthy crime ridden neighborhoods, we now not only have been forced to give the streets over to vagrants, dealers, addicts and hookers, but we are now being told that they actually bring personality to the areas????

i've been to slums in 3rd world countries, and many of those people live with more dignity than the "residents" in the downtown eastside, who spend their days in a state sponsored comatose, while all the social advocates around them do everything possible to avoid confronting their issues and tip toe around trying not to offend them by using terms like "Diverse communities".

Loose Change?

Imagine my surprise when I collected 5 years worth of loose change together and decided to cash it in, when I arrived at my local HSBC branch only to be handed wads of roll paper and told i need to roll it. What the FUCK! Is this 1875? You can purchase coin counting machines for a couple of hundred dollars, surely a fucking bank should have them? "Oh no sir, sorry we don't do that".

No problem, right? Surely there's a private sector company who has recognized the need for coin counting machines, and then it dawned on me - yes, I had seen them in Safeway!! Got online only to discover Coinstar had pulled all of its machines out of Canada! For a while it seems there was only one publicly accessible coin counting machine - at Nesters supermarket on burrard st, and lo and behold that too is now gone.....ARGHHHHHH

So after lengthy discussions and complaints, one of my co workers has alerted me to a solution - casinos! Never set foot in a local casino, my theory is you should never use casinos in the city you live in, so i called up the Edgewater Casino - and sure enough they are only too happy to convert bag fulls of coins into gaming tokens, which you can of course redeem for cash....

Gordon Campbell is not responsible for all your fuck ups

i am no gordon campbell apologist - or even fan. but i have to laugh at the endless array of people in this province who don't readily take any personal responsibility for their own situation in life, and choose to blame all of the poor decisions they have made on govt. every single negative story sparks an outcry of liberal bashing and brings out the usual rag tag crowd with their ill informed, rage fueled part time commentary.

dont forget people the current government was elected by a majority of voters in a democratic process - also despite the little world we live in here, the rest of the world is in one of the worst recessions in modern times and our largest trading partner, customer and neighbor is in the worst downturn they have seen since the great depression. so you might expect that there is going to be some hurdles and tough times, which are well and truly outside of the power/control of our provincial government. although i guess it's ultimately simpler to be able to blame one individual. lets not even get started on the last provincial ndp govt which bankrupted this province in very good world economic times, while not giving us so much as a new highway to show for it.

Newsflash - Earls, Milestones and Cactus Club are not good restaurants

here's something that irks the living shit out of me, head into yaletown - one of the cities best entertainment/bar/food district and the streets are littered with franchised canadian food chains earls, milestones, browns, cactus club and now the keg. these places are no more than stagnant stale, mass produced business class red robins with menu prices that more reflect the over stated ikea chic decor, than the food. and like the decor, the people that frequent these establishments order from predominantly the burger section, but like to believe that because they are ordering a burger at the cactus club in yaletown - they are somehow living large.

The Olympics Part 1

This is really in defense of the olympics and a fuck you to all the morons out there who feel left out, disenfranchised and marginalized and are blaming the campbell government and the olympics for every poor decision in life they have made.

take some responsibility people, for your own lives. it's not the governments job to ensure your fed, live in a nice house and can afford your beer every weekend - that's yours. and if you unhappy with your situation - do something about, go back to school, take a course, change your career, work harder, take a second job, cut back on your expenses. these are lessons that I believe many people go through life without, and then they have the nerve to look around and get angry at people who have gotten ahead. Drop this sense of entitlement attitude and get off your butts and help yourself - it's a great country, there's plenty of opportunity for people who want to work and make a life.